


The Little Key

by decco6226



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Brotherly Love, Character Death, Graphic Description of Corpses, Heavy Angst, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 22:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decco6226/pseuds/decco6226
Summary: After kicked out of their home, Emperor rushes back after an unknown amount of time, desperate to save his brother who was left behind.





	The Little Key

A flash of yellow-inked tentacles like the sun flashed by towards the left as the bay doors opened to the apartment where Emperor had once called his home. As he turned into the wooden doors into the hallways with the brown bricks, white hard plaster walls, the ten-year-old’s heart began to beat faster. He was going home. He could feel the circulation going through his arms, through his jugular to his brain. 

The clapping of his shoes hit the stone tiles, his small black beret on his head, choco clogs, the inkfall shirt he was wearing, as the wartime had lost his parent’s money, and his family was kicked out of the apartment they were forced into… that’s where his brother was… That’s where Prince was. In that small locked closet in their small bedroom behind the wallpaper. Had he been gone long? He was not sure how long; separated from his parents, had it been a week? A month?

Maybe when he had been away his mother or father had been able to come back and maybe they were all waiting for him as the two adult inklings brought him home. They were there, with Prince, in that apartment, waiting for him to return. Was he out of his mind? Was he not able to think that? Could he not hope, was he not allowed? Twelve years old, and he wanted to hope, he wanted to believe, more than anything, more than life itself. His six-year-old brother was alright… He had that jug of water in the closet - hell, he could’ve kicked open the locked door after the police came and took the rest of his family away…

“Stop!” The female inkling called after him. “You do not know who you will find!”

He turned his head, calling, “I’ll see you above!”

And then he continued to run down, arms swinging, looking around with panicked nostalgia as he dashed into the staircase built into the rocky wall on the left. Quick now, he had to be quick, he was home at last, and there was no time to lose. He started huffing out panicked cries out of, what, fear? Excitement? Both?

The two adults ran in after him, side by side, keeping track of the sounds of the smaller child just to follow him. Where was this place? Was this really his home…?

“Prince!” He screamed as he climbed the last of the stairs to the fourth floor. He was so out of breath, it stung into his lungs, his sides, but his mind was too set. He dragged his hand up against the wall to the left, feet slapping on the echoey stairs as he turned again to his apartment’s door. 

He pounded on the door with his right fist, quick, sharp. “Prince! Prince!” No answer. He pounded harder with his fists. “Prince!” He almost cried, desperately. 

Purple inked adults that were running after him made it to the second floor from the stairs, the female looking up the corridors. “Wait, Emperor!” She called, pulling on the railing to make he climb faster. 

Was it a warning…?

Then the young monarch heard footsteps behind the door, and the dark oak slowly opened, a young boy of about twelve peeked from behind it. He had blue colored ink, sporting goggles on his head, and a white muscle shirt on. 

Emperor didn’t even wait for the boy to ask anything. To say “hello”, or “What is wrong?”, only stammering in pure excitement and panic. “W-where is Prince?  _ Where’s my brother!? _ ”

The goggles boy looked confused. Who was he? What was this boy doing in his apartment? “Your brother?” He had said slowly. 

With a huff - no time for this - he pushed the boy aside brutally, hardly noticing the new paintings on the entrance wall, an unknown bookshelf, a strange red and green carpet. The astonished boy shouter for his papa, but the golden inkling would not stop. He rushed down the long, familiar corridor and turned left, into his bedroom.

The goggles inkling’s father opened the office door and looked out at his son’s voice which was calling, and barely was able to ask, “What is that noise?” before two grown inklings ran into his home as well, after a golden child who had run into his son’s room. 

Emperor did not notice the new wallpaper, the new bed, the books, the belongings that had nothing to do with him. Instead, it was focused on the wallpapered door hidden in the wall, and he pulled a small makeshift bed out that was blocking the entrance of it, little arms tugging it to the left, out of his way. 

He had whipped out the little key he had kept for that unknown amount of time since that night the octarians came and forced them out of their home - where Emperor assured his little brother he would be safe. He had the water. The light. The books. The bravery… From now, he had to be fast, and fumbled with the lock. But he was too nervous, too impatient. His fingers were trembling so violently he dropped the key. 

It took a moment for Emperor to work with it, but finally, the lock clicked, and just when he put his smaller fingers into the cut-in wood to tug it open, the two adults rushed inside the room to see what would happen next.

A creak as the cupboard was tugged open, and his tentacles blew backward slightly in the stench that hit him like a punch, causing him to draw away slightly, his eyes widened to their fullest circumference. He could not speak, only quiver, gasping for air slightly that filled his lungs, and when the air buildup had come, he inhaled deeply, and let out the loudest wailed scream he’d ever made as knees buckled, hand falling off the door. No energy to not turn away but to stare, take another breath and let out a shriveling wail of disbelieving sadness and fear.

The father had come in as Emperor took another inhale, and then, “No! No!” The father covered his mouth, forcing himself not to vomit of the odor coming out of his own wall, and the female adult covering her mouth too in absolute grief. 

Emperor’s fingers covered upwards his mouth, his nose, but eyes not tearing away from the sight in the back of the hidden closet, tears falling. He felt the adult inklings pick him up with his heavy hands, and carry him back from the door, but at the sudden air, he defiantly screamed, shoving with his little arms in the air, elbowing him to put him down, kicking his little legs in the air, screaming as he was carried out. 

The scream was for himself, for his mother, for his father, for Prince, the small lump of a motionless black, curled up body, the little face, blackened, unrecognizable, that ghastly moment. For the rotten, putrid smell. For the golden ink. For the six-year-old stiffened body curled up in the back of the closet that had gone a horrible green color. 

  
  
  



End file.
